


Grape Cough Syrup Doesn’t Taste Like Grapes, but it Sure Tastes Like Purple

by CelticxPanda



Series: The City is Contagious [9]
Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Up Turtles, F/M, Fluff, Italian Curse Words, Original Character-centric, Pining, Self-Insert, Sickfic, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28732599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticxPanda/pseuds/CelticxPanda
Summary: Meg was a handful most times, but apparently even more so while sick (but Donatello doesn't really mind).
Relationships: Donatello (TMNT) & Original Female Character(s), Donatello (TMNT)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The City is Contagious [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2063859
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Grape Cough Syrup Doesn’t Taste Like Grapes, but it Sure Tastes Like Purple

Meg, for all intents and purposes, was feeling pretty fucking miserable at the moment. She didn’t know which fucker at the library decided to not wash their fucking hands before touching her goddamn books, but were she feeling any less like death, she’d have some words for them. It was probably one of the goddamn business majors from Alpha Psi Epsilon. Those fuckers were as nasty as they were stuck up. 

It was probably that fucker that dared to call her ‘more to love’. There was no way that guy washed his hands more than like, twice a day at most. 

She wasn’t entirely sure if sending Robin away until she got better was the right move at this point, either. Sure, she certainly didn’t want her friend getting sick, but she also hated being alone when she was this miserable. Especially since Robin did the majority of the cooking between the two of them -- something she insisted on since Meg was paying like, all of the bills -- so now Meg was stuck basically eating nothing but breakfast tacos and whatever pasta she had the patience to boil. Not that it really mattered what she ate, she could barely taste any of it. 

“I should eat soon,” Meg muttered to herself. No roommate meant no need to reign in her habit of talking to herself. Granted, Robin probably didn’t care if she talked to herself, but it was just easier to save everyone the confusion. “But I dun wanna get up.” 

“Psst! Meg!” 

She was so doped up on cough syrup and decongestants that she was starting to hear things. She leaned her head back against the stack of pillows her mum insisted on making when she called her to complain. Say what you will about Southern Women, but they sure knew how to take care of sick folks. 

She stared up at the ceiling, brows furrowing when she heard something tapping on her window. Was that another one of Robin’s stupid pidgeons? The tapping came again. And again. 

Meg shot up into a sitting position, immediately regretting it when a sudden bout of dizziness hit her. Well, that wasn’t about to stop her from shouting.

“Mother fucker! I am not feeding you!” Turing to glare out the window, she found not a pigeon, but Donatello on her fire escape. 

“I wasn’t asking you to feed me,” Donatello said, sounding confused. 

“Oh, shit? Donnie?” Meg shuffled over to the window, shoulders wrapped up in one of her many blankets. “What are you doing here?”

She opened the window, allowing Donatello to slip in. He took a moment to glance around her room, taking in the large display of stuffed animals in the corner and the wall of pin and magnet boards covered in pins, buttons, and charms of anime characters and other cute things. Her desk was piled high with notebooks and mail, and her bookshelves were stuffed with volumes of comics, manga, and fantasy series. 

“Dude? You gonna answer me?”

“You haven’t been to work the past few days,” he said, bringing his attention back to Meg. “I wanted to check on you.” 

Meg tugged her blanket tighter around her shoulders, leveling Donatello with a look of annoyance. “As you can see, I’m feeling peachy keen. Right as rain. Absolutely fantabulous.” 

Donatello gave her a once over like he had her room, taking in the dark shadows under her eyes and the red nose. She wasn’t even hiding the fact she was in her pajamas. She was shivering slightly, despite the blanket draped around her shoulders like the shawl of some pastoral farm girl in the Alps. 

“You are clearly none of those things.” 

Meg wanted to throw up her hands, but her body just kinda hurt in general so she didn’t do that. Instead, she just sniffed and muttered. “No shit, Donnie.” 

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Donatello said, setting his bo staff to the side and ushering Meg back towards her bed. “Have you gone to the doctor?”

“Bitch, do I look like I can afford a doctor’s visit?” 

“Alright, alright,” Donatello said placatingly. “Fair enough. Do you at least have medicine?”

“I’m doped up on about as much as I can take without shit cancelling each other out,” Meg said, settling back against her mountain of pillows. “I called my folks to make sure I wasn’t going to die if I took shit at the same time.” 

“How are your symptoms then?” Donatello asked, pulling a blanket up towards her chest.

“I can breathe, at least,” she said, flashing Donatello a thankful smile. “Fever’s not as bad as it was. Hey, is it weird that I just now noticed that your eyes aren’t the same color?”

Donatello paused, shooting her a confused look. “What?”

“Yeah, so I just kinda thought both your eyes were brown, but now I’m seeing that one is very specifically red,” Meg rambled. “Is that weird?” 

Donatello simply shook his head, deciding to ignore her. “Are you drinking water?” 

Meg pouted and gestured towards the glass of water on her bedside table. “Yes, mum.” 

Donatello shushed her absently, tapping his chin in thought. She was elevated, medicated as well as she could be, and the glass of water was at least three-fourths empty. He could get her more water, and maybe see if he couldn’t scrounge up some food. But she mentioned a roommate more than once. He couldn’t risk her seeing him.

“Is your roommate home?” he asked.

Meg shook her head. “Nah. I didn’t want her to get sick so I sent her to stay with her sister elsewhere in the city.”

Well, that explained why Leo had been so antsy and irritated lately. Donatello shook his head at the thought, grabbing the cup of water and wandering out into the rest of the apartment. It was small, as most apartments in New York were, but it wasn’t bad for Brooklyn. At the very least they had a nice balcony off the kitchen, instead of them just subsisting off the fire escape as their outdoor space. 

He set the glass to the side, scrounging through cabinets and the fridge for anything he could make for Meg quickly. There were several microwavable bowls of soup, which seemed to be his best bet. He trusted himself with that way more than he did any of the other things he found -- there were a lot of boxed pastas and frozen pizzas, but Donatello did not trust himself with the oven at this junction. 

Popping one of those in the microwave for the allotted time on the packaging, Donatello refilled the water glass and returned to Meg’s room, where he found her half hanging out of her bed as she tried to reach her buzzing phone. 

“What are you doing?” he demanded, setting her water on the coster that occupied the nearest corner of her bedside table. He pushed her back against the pillows, crossing his arms in the way he’d seen Leonardo do when he started in on his Disappointed Leader shtick he learned from Master Splinter. 

“Robin is texting me,” Meg whined, reaching towards her phone pathetically. “I need to reply.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Donatello said, already picking up her phone. He swiped at the message, opening up the keyboard to reply.

And that was when he noticed how Not Made For Turtle Fingers the keyboard was. For every one letter he tried to type, four more got hit around it. 

“Uhhh…”

“Give it to me, you… you…” Meg paused, trying to find an insult that wouldn’t actually hurt Donatello’s feelings. Because while he was being a pain in her ass, he was also being way nicer to her than she really deserved. “You big bupkis.” 

“Been hanging out at your local Jewish delicatessen, have you?” Donatello teased, handing over the phone. 

“They have really good asiago bagels,” Meg muttered, pouting as she typed out a reply to Robin. She coughed wetly, and Dontello winced at how awful it sounded. “Fuck. What time is it?”

“Uhhh…” Dontello looked around. Wait. “You’re the one with the phone in her hands.”

“Oh.” Meg looked down at her phone as if she’d never seen it before in her life. “Shit, it’s already been four hours? Donnie? Be the sweetest taro pastry in the Taiwanese bakery and pour me a shot of cough syrup? Please? It’s all the way across the room on my dresser.” 

Donatello rolled his eyes. Really. Why did he put up with her? 

Well, he knew why, but he wasn’t about to think about that right now. 

He reached for the bottle on the dresser, making a face at the label. “Grape flavor? Really?” 

“To be fair to the medicine people,” Meg said, raising a faux authoritative finger. “It doesn’t take anything like grapes, but it sure tastes like purple.” 

“Tastes like what?”

“Purple,” Meg repeated. “Kinda like strawberry candy just tastes like pink. Or blue raspberry shit doesn’t taste like raspberry but tastes hella blue.” 

“And cherry flavor tastes like red?” Dontello asked with a chuckle as he poured out a dose of the syrup.

“Now you’re getting it!” Meg grinned, looking a bit better than she did when Donatello showed up. She downed the syrup without complaint, chasing it with the water he’d gotten for her. “Do I hear something beeping?”

“Oh, that’s the soup I made you,” Donatello said, walking towards the door.

“What kinda soup?” Meg asked, perking up.

“Pretty sure I only saw tomato in there.”

Meg nodded sagely. “Fair enough. Fair enough. Don’t forget to put goldfish in it!”

Donatello stopped at her door, turning to shoot her a confused look. “Put what in it?” 

“Goldfish!” Meg insisted. “You know! The snack that smiles back! Can’t have tomato soup without goldfish in it! It’s like! Sacrilegious or something.” 

“Oooh, sacrilegious. Look who’s pulling out the big words tonight,” Donatello teased. 

“Fuck you, you terrapin menace.” 

“I’d be more impressed with your insults if you actually managed to go international with it,” Donatello called from the kitchen. Despite his protests, he did, in fact, go looking for the aforementioned Goldfish Crackers. Unsure how many Meg would want -- beyond her likely answer of ‘all of them’ -- Donatello decided it was best if he just brought the bag with him. There was a serving tray sitting on the coffee table in the living room, which he quickly cleared off and co-opted for his unexpected dinner service. 

As he came into the room, though, Meg leveled him with a venomous glare, which didn’t work nearly as well with how many pillows and blankets she was surrounded by. 

“What?” he asked.

“Vaffanculo.”

“What?” Donatello asked again, with even more confusion. That felt like something he should be offended by, but he had no idea what she’d just said.

“You said you’d be more impressed if I went international with my cursing,” Meg said, reaching out for the tray of food. “So I did. I studied abroad in Italy for a year. It’s amazing what you pick up when you hang out with locals.” 

Donatello shook his head, setting the tray of food on Meg’s lap. He paused, watching as she poured what seemed to be half the bag of tiny, fish-shaped cheese crackers into the soup. She still seemed flushed. Did she need to take a fever suppressor again?

He reached out, fingers brushing against her neck to gauge her temperature. Meg immediately squeaked loudly, her shoulders shooting up to her ears to hide her neck. It was a miracle she didn’t spill her soup with her violent reaction. 

Meg smacked at his hand, lighter than Donatello would have expected -- though that was probably due to her illness -- and glared at him. “The fuck was that?”

“I was checking your temperature!” Donatello insisted. 

“I’m fine!” Meg argued. “I took an acetaminophen like an hour ago. Besides, the more accurate place to check would be the armpit. And I ain’t lettin’ you touch that, either!” 

Donatello knew he should probably be listening to her words, but he found himself hearing less the words and more the way she said them. Normally Meg had a pretty generic accent, something that could be from anywhere. But just then sounded different. He wasn’t sure how to describe it. The word that stuck in his mind was ‘sweeter.’ “Huh.”

Meg shot Donatello an irritated look. “What?”

“I never noticed your accent before.” 

Meg blinked, taken aback. She’d bounced around to so many places as a kid that no one particular accent or dialect had stuck, least not until her family settled in Texas. She’d picked up a few things there, but it usually didn’t turn up unless she got excited about something -- whether that was a good excitement or a bad excitement never really mattered. 

She smirked, laying her accent on thick. “Oh darlin’, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” 

Donatello flushed redder than Meg had ever seen, coughing in embarrassment. “That’s not funny.”

Meg snickered. “It really is, though.”

She gathered a mouthful of soup and goldfish crackers in her spoon, almost burning her mouth on it as she scarfed it down. “Anyway, thanks for all this. This is like, way more than I could have asked of you.”

Donatello’s face continued to be red, though that didn’t stop him from smiling shyly at her. “Don’t worry about it. Just get better, alright.”

“Aye aye,” Meg said as bombastically as she could, saluting Dontello. 

He shook his head, shy smile growing fond. “I’m going to go now. Let me know if you need anything, alright. You do have my number, you know.”

“Oh shit, I do!” Meg shouted, reaching for her phone. “I totally fucking forgot about that.” 

“This is not an open invitation to send me memes,” Dontello warned.

Meg grinned at him. “Yes it is.” 

“Meg, I’m serious.”

“How you gonna stop me? Can’t let you know if I need anything if you block me.”

Donatello sighed. Really, he put up with so much. 

“I’m leaving,” he said again, making his way to the fire escape. He opened the window, stepping through, when Meg called his name once more.

“Hey, Donnie?”

He looked back at her, catching an unusually sincere smile on her face. “Yeah?”

“Thanks. I mean it.”

He matched her smile with one of his own. “Anytime.”

She at least let him get home before sending him the first piece of nonsense. A short video of a turtle just...headbutting a guy’s shoe for no discernible reason. Not the strangest thing she could have sent him, at least.

‘You know this guy?’ her following text asked, followed by a smattering of laughing emoji.

“Hey, Don,” Raph called from the couch. “What’re you lookin’ at your phone for?”

‘Actually,’ Donatello texted back, ‘I just might.’

**Author's Note:**

> Eyyyy, thanks for stickin' round! Make sure you leave a comment telling me what you think. What's your preferred cough syrup flavor? I've never actually had the grape stuff, usually we just get the cherry flavor at our house lol


End file.
